Marvel: The Awakened One

”Big brother.”

”Mm.”

”What’s this?”

At the edge of the Underworld’s Pure Land, Anya stared with undisguised curiosity. Her brother had waved his right hand, and a pool of blood had materialized before them.

A pool of blood that bubbled and gurgled ominously.

It looked terrifying.

But Anya had spent years in Hell. Her threshold for horror had been raised considerably. So while the blood pool before her looked deeply unsettling, she was more curious about what it actually was.

Hawk didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he reached into the Eden Apple and pulled out a Heavenly soul—one with eyes as pure and innocent as an untainted college freshman—and tossed it directly into the blood pool.

The moment the Heavenly soul entered, the boiling pool went still.

Only then did Hawk turn to his little sister with a smile. ”Thought you might get bored here. Making you some playmates.”

Anya blinked at her brother.

”Playmates?”

”Mm.”

Hawk smiled, then looked back at the blood pool, which had begun boiling again. ”You’ll see in a moment.”

As his words fell.

Something within the churning pool seemed to be rising to the surface.

Anya watched without blinking.

The next second.

A woman emerged from the blood pool like a goddess rising from a bath—fierce horns crowning her head, her entire body a deep crimson.

Anya’s eyes went wide.

”Brother, this is...”

”A Blood Elf.”

Hawk’s lips curved upward.

He gazed at the figure floating serenely in the pool—perfectly balanced between the Blood God, Hell, and Heaven. She looked up at him with eyes of pure innocence. And for a moment, Hawk felt something stir within him.

The sensation of being a Creator.

This was what he’d conceived and brought into existence over the past few days, after obtaining and refining the Blood God dimension, then merging it into his Underworld.

A life form that belonged exclusively to his realm.

Even though his Cosmo hadn’t fully materialized in reality yet.

But that didn’t matter.

Beings of the Underworld only required souls.

And the Eden Apple he’d taken from cloning expert Dr. Merrick contained an ocean of blank Heavenly souls.

But those souls belonged to Heaven.

If Hawk wanted to use them, he had to cleanse them first—wash away Heaven’s mark and make them his own.

That hadn’t been possible before.

His Cosmo wasn’t fully materialized yet. It couldn’t perform soul-cleansing functions.

But then La Magra died, leaving behind an ownerless Blood God dimension. A real, physical dimension that existed in reality.

And that was...

Perfect!

Hawk hadn’t rushed to claim the Blood God dimension. He’d wrapped his Sixth Sense around it for days, waiting until he was absolutely certain La Magra’s soul had completely dissipated. Only then did he accept the inheritance.

Mephisto’s words couldn’t be trusted—not even the punctuation.

By the same logic.

He hadn’t fully believed La Magra either.

Mephisto wasn’t a good person.

Did that mean La Magra was?

Hawk had waited several days. When his Sixth Sense confirmed that the Blood God dimension was genuinely collapsing without its master, he finally claimed it. Then, after a few more days of experimentation, he merged it into his Underworld.

From this moment forward, his Cosmo had an anchor point in the real universe.

The Blood God—

Forget it.

The Blood God was dead. The kind of dead where burning paper money at his grave wouldn’t help. This dimension should be called the Blood Dimension now.

The dried-up husk was the Blood God dimension. His Blood Dimension had nothing to do with that corpse.

With the Reality Stone in hand.

Filling the Blood Dimension to the brim was as simple as a single thought.

But Hawk—who had previously unlocked a portion of the Reality Stone’s processing power by absorbing life energy—had once again maxed out the Stone’s computational load.

Still—

IT WAS ALL WORTH IT.

With the Blood Dimension, he could now convert the ocean of souls in the Eden Apple, transforming those Heaven-aligned spirits into a race that belonged solely to him.

The Blood Elves.

The Blood Elf who had emerged from the pool fixed her bright, clear eyes on Hawk standing at the shore. Her form shifted.

The demonic horns symbolizing death vanished from her head. Long, silky crimson hair cascaded down her back. Pointed ears—the signature trait of elvenkind—framed her face. She stepped out of the pool wearing a flowing crimson dress, walked to Hawk, and dropped to one knee. She looked up at him.

”Master.”

”Mm.”

Hawk studied this first Blood Elf of his creation—gazing up at him with those seductive yet ethereal eyes—and smiled. ”From now on, your name is Kayla. Matriarch of the Blood Elf race.”

The Blood Elf Kayla’s voice was ethereal and melodic. ”Thank you, Master.”

”Rise.”

”Yes.” Kayla rose gracefully, then turned to Anya and immediately dropped to one knee again.

”Young Miss.”

”...Brother?” Anya blinked in confusion, looking at Hawk.

Hawk smiled at his little sister. ”The Underworld’s Blood Elves will be your personal guard. Kayla is the captain I’ve prepared for you. You said I never let you venture beyond Pure Land, right? With Kayla, if you want to visit the Blazing Prison, you can.”

True, the Underworld was his domain. Nothing escaped his perception.

But—

He’d finally found his sister again. He wasn’t about to let anything happen to her.

Even if Hawk could guarantee with one hundred percent certainty that Anya was safe within his Underworld.

He still couldn’t shake the worry.

It was probably an illness.

Hawk knew this about himself. But now that the Underworld had its own exclusive life form in the Blood Elves, the problem was solved.

As beings he’d created with his own hands—completely and utterly loyal to him—Blood Elves were perfect as his sister’s guards.

This way, even when he wasn’t in the Underworld, Anya could explore beyond Pure Land without any safety concerns.

Sure enough.

The moment Anya heard she could visit the Blazing Prison, her eyes lit up. She couldn’t contain her smile.

”Really?”

”Of course.”

Hawk looked at Anya with adoring indulgence. ”But only with Kayla and her Blood Elves accompanying you.”

Anya blinked.

”Blood Elves... plural?”

”Of course.”

Hawk smiled, then with a thought, sent more Heavenly souls cascading into the blood pool.

As the pool erupted into a rolling boil, these souls—originally branded by Heaven—underwent transformation in the Underworld’s blood pool. One by one, they emerged reborn: Blood Elves of varying appearances, but all sharing golden hair, emerald eyes, and tall, stunning figures.

Naturally.

Where there were females, there had to be males.

But compared to the breathtakingly beautiful female Blood Elves, the male Blood Elves Hawk created were... considerably less aesthetically gifted.

The most direct evidence? The male Blood Elves were so ugly they didn’t even warrant a description.

If the female Blood Elves were Hawk’s masterpieces—powerful yet beautiful, crafted with loving attention—

The male Blood Elves were clearly phoned in.

But this was perfectly normal.

Men were beasts of burden. What did they need to look good for?

If the female Blood Elves were created to serve as his sister’s guards, then the male Blood Elves existed to be workhorses.

”Your name is Kai.”

Hawk glanced at the first male Blood Elf to emerge from the pool and assigned a name off the top of his head. ”From today onward, you will be stationed in the Blazing Prison, managing the damned souls within.”

The male Blood Elf named Kai responded in a deep, powerful voice.

Yes.

Male Blood Elves were created specifically to help Hawk manage the Blazing Prison.

After all, his Prison now housed over five hundred souls.

This was something Mephisto had promised him.

Every soul Hawk killed belonged to him.

Whether Mephisto and Yahweh were actually allies—as La Magra had claimed—or not...

One sentence summed it up.

Not his problem. He’d never actually believed Mephisto in the first place.

Was Mephisto deceiving or manipulating him? Did it matter? No, it didn’t.

Only children made either-or choices.

Heaven?

Hell?

HE WANTED BOTH!

Before, he hadn’t had the manpower. Even if he’d conquered Hell, he couldn’t have personally managed Earth’s cycle of life and death.

But now he could create his own race. He had subordinates with absolute loyalty.

Given that—Mephisto no longer needed to exist.

A tiger doesn’t share its den with another predator.

...

”Old Meph.”

”Don’t say I never gave you a chance.”

”Agreeing to cooperate with you was the chance.”

”You’d better hold onto it tight.”

Hawk watched the male Blood Elves continue emerging from the pool, a cold smile playing at his lips as these thoughts ran through his mind.

As thousands of male Blood Elves took up residence in the Blazing Prison, the souls who had been finding ways to slack off and minimize their suffering suddenly found themselves face-to-face with their very own wardens.

Soul after soul screamed in agony as they were beaten.

Including Merrick, who had been half-assing it in the Frozen Prison.

Merrick—who had died more times than he could count—respawned and stayed perfectly still, waiting for the extreme cold to consume him again.

His strategy: if he didn’t think, he wouldn’t feel the pain.

But with the arrival of two male Blood Elves, Dr. Merrick’s screams echoed through the frozen wastes.

One Blood Elf flicked his right hand. A blood-red whip materialized and cracked across Merrick’s face like lightning.

CRACK!

”AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!”

”MOVE IT!”

Dr. Merrick stared at the male Blood Elves—definitely not here before, but here now—his brain seemingly short-circuiting.

CRACK!

Another lash. Merrick screamed in agony.

Alexander Pierce—who had been walking ahead this entire time, never once considering giving up despite dying countless times—heard the screams behind him. He shook his head, then continued forward in silence.

Hawk, standing above the Frozen Prison, looked down at Alexander Pierce and frowned slightly.

After a moment’s thought.

He decided not to check on Alexander Pierce.

After all—

He’d given the man two chances already.

There wouldn’t be a third.

Hawk thought this to himself, then let his consciousness ascend, returning to reality.

What he saw:

Gwen, already changed, stepping out of the walk-in closet.

”Let’s go.”

”Peter and Felicia are already at the church.”

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